I’M A CITY CHANGER

June 5, 2012

Yesterday on the blog, I mentioned an idea that David ‘Blackman‘ Muthami had and approached me about. Today, I expound on that. I have always believed that hope trumps fear every time and that we have many many reasons to complain about everything. In Africa we can complain and protest bad governance, bad roads, bad ‘many things’, but I also believe that sometimes in life, you just need to pull out some damn positives. See the problems and be a solution. I do believe that all of us can be solutions in our own way. We can’t all be photographers, we can’t all be writers, architects, protesters, road workers. We can’t. Everyone has a role to play to make our cities and by extension, countries, better places to live in.

Blackman helped me see a greater use for these images than I had seen and together with the UN Habitat, we are committing to show you a Nairobi you may or may not have seen but that you may have ignored. A Nairobi that has people that are doing great things. That has good architecture and a good sense of space. We may not be in the future but we are not in the dark ages anymore and we need to believe that for ourselves. What are your expectations of your city? Emmanuel Lambert III once said that ‘Your greatest frustration is something you are here to solve‘. Today, start solving something. Be a city changer.

ONE SMALL PART

This week I want to call on all you guys around the world to take photos of your cities and share them with everyone, yes? You don’t have to be a photographer, use your camera phone or whatever mobile platform you have and take a photo of your city. Take a photo of something you love in your city, anything. If you are on Instagram (it’s available for both iPhone and Android), share it there. If you aren’t on Instagram (I don’t know you ain’t but it’s ok), you can share the photo on twitter via twitpic or whatever other photo sharing service you use and tag it using the tag #imacitychanger and include your city, in my case #Nairobi. The photos and tweets shall appear on the I’m a City Changer page here on my website for all people to view and appreciate.

Anywhere you are in the WORLD, you can participate in this. Show us your city and be a City Changer.

For example,

Go and select your image like you would on Instagram normally, upload it as usual. In this case, i’m using this photo I took on my phone, of Nation Center in the CBD.

Select your filter style, like you would on Instagram, or not. Here, this is your choice based on whatever your expression is.

Bam! Your photo is shared and ready for the world. We can show people what we want them to see about our cities.

If you have no photographic eye, don’t worry, you can participate via twitter and facebook too. For this week, for once, let us not complain, let us not throw around lazy statements, let us celebrate being city changers. Let us celebrate our cities because the reality is that we live in cities because we love them, cities are fun places to be. Make yourself heard by adding the #imacitychanger tag to your tweet and let the world know what is great about your city. Maybe in the time that we share this, we may discover ourselves what is great about our cities.

If you want to use our city changer facebook cover photo, feel free to download either one of them here (on the buttons up there ^)or on the facebook page. That way you can show your support of the cause via facebook. The cover photos are the ones shown here. You can download them in both black/white or color. This is a special treat for our facebook friends :). Enjoy.

Read all about the I’m A City Changer campaign by the UN Habitat on the I’m A City Changer Website. See reasons why you should be a City Changer. If you need someone from the UN Habitat to answer a question for you, it’s easy, tag and follow @unhabitat.

See what everyone is saying and what photos people are sharing about being a city changer HERE.